Gabara

Gabara (Showa 1969)

Gabara (Showa)

Showa Gabara (凶悪怪獣 ガバラ, Kyōaku Kaijū Gabara — The Heinous Monster) holds a singularly fascinating and psychologically allegorical place within Toho's golden Showa canon. Debuting in director Ishirō Honda's reflective classic *All Monsters Attack* (1969 — *Gojira, Minira, Gabara: Ōru Kaijū Daishingeki* / *Godzilla's Revenge*), Gabara is not an ancient prehistoric relic or an alien invader, but the metaphysical monstrous manifestation of an elementary school bully named Sanko within the vivid daydreams of a lonely latchkey child, Ichiro Miki. Towering 58 meters tall and weighing 23,000 metric tons with turquoise wart-studded amphibian skin, an unkempt shock of fiery orange hair, and an Oni-like visage, Gabara reigns as the tyrannical terror of Monster Island, relentlessly tormenting Godzilla's gentle offspring, Minilla. Armed with the ability to channel 500,000 volts of lethal bio-electricity through his palm pads, Gabara paralyzes rivals with excruciating electrical shocks. Yet when Minilla finds the courage to fight back and Godzilla intervenes with a masterclass in judo hip throws, the cowardly brute is thoroughly humiliated, teaching generations of children the virtue of standing up against bullies.